Human Reproduction, Vol.32, No.4 pp. 868–875, 2017
Advanced Access publication on February 10, 2017 doi:10.1093/humrep/dex016
ORIGINAL ARTICLE Psychology and counselling
Children’s thoughts and feelings about
their donor and security of attachment
to their solo mothers in middle
childhood
S. Zadeh*, C.M. Jones, T. Basi, and S. Golombok
Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RQ, UK
*Correspondence address. Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK. E-mail: [email protected]
Submitted on August 28, 2016; resubmitted on January 10, 2017; accepted on January 27, 2017
STUDY QUESTION: What is the relationship between children’s thoughts and feelings about their donor and their security of attachment
to their solo mothers in middle childhood?
SUMMARY ANSWER: Children with higher levels of secure–autonomous attachment to their mothers were more likely to have positive
perceptions of the donor, and those with higher levels of insecure–disorganized attachment to their mothers were more likely to perceive
him negatively.
WHAT IS KNOWN ALREADY: There is limited understanding of the factors that contribute to children’s thoughts and feelings about
their donor in solo mother families. In adolescence, an association was found between adolescents’ curiosity about donor conception and
their security of attachment to their mothers.
STUDY DESIGN, SIZE, DURATION: 19 children were administered the Friends and Family Interview and Donor Conception Interview
between December 2015 and March 2016 as part of the second phase of a longitudinal, multi-method, multi-informant study of solo mother
families.
PARTICIPANTS/MATERIALS, SETTING, METHODS: All children were aged between 7 and 13 years and had been conceived by
donor insemination to solo mothers. Interviews were conducted in participants’ homes. The Friends and Family Interview was rated according to a standardized coding scheme designed to measure security of attachment in terms of secure–autonomous, insecure–dismissing, insecure–preoccupied and insecure–disorganized attachment patterns. Quantitative analyses of the Donor Conception Interview yielded two
factors: interest in the donor and perceptions of the donor. Qualitative analyses of the Donor Conception Interview were conducted using
qualitative content analysis and thematic analysis.
MAIN RESULTS AND THE ROLE OF CHANCE: Statistically significant associations were found between the perception of the
donor scale and the secure–autonomous and insecure–disorganized attachment ratings. Children with higher levels of secure–
autonomous attachment to their mothers were more likely to have positive perceptions of the donor (r = 0.549, P = 0.015), and those
with higher levels of insecure–disorganized attachment to their mothers were more likely to perceive him negatively (r = −0.632, P =
0.004). Children’s narratives about the donor depicted him as a stranger (n = 8), a biological father (n = 4), a social parent (n = 3), or
in ambivalent terms (n = 4).
LIMITATIONS, REASONS FOR CAUTION: Findings are limited by the wide age range of children within a small overall sample size.
Participants were those willing and able to take part in research on donor conception families. The statistical significance of correlation coefficients was not corrected for multiple comparisons.
WIDER IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS: Findings highlight the importance of situating children’s ideas about the donor within fam-
ily contexts. It is recommended that those working with donor conception families consider this when advising parents about whether, what
and how to tell children about donor conception.
© The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Children’s thoughts and feelings about their donor
STUDY FUNDING/COMPETING INTEREST(S): This study was funded by the Wellcome Trust [097857/Z/11/Z]. The authors
have no conflicts of interest to declare.
Key words: donor conception / solo mother / children’s perspectives / attachment / mother–child relationships
Introduction
There has been a worldwide increase in the number of single women
accessing fertility treatment with donated gametes (De Wert et al.,
2014). Most of the empirical research on this topic has focused on single women who used donor sperm in their path to parenthood. This
growing literature has generally shown that solo mother families do
not differ in terms of family functioning or child adjustment from those
headed by opposite-sex or same-sex couples (Chan et al., 1998;
Murray and Golombok, 2005a,b; Golombok et al., 2016).
Less is known about how parents and children in solo mother families
think and feel about the sperm donors involved in family creation.
Regarding mothers’ perspectives, there is inconsistent evidence about
the relationship between the significance attributed to the donor and
the information known about him. In the US, anonymous donors have
been found to be a symbolic presence within families (Hertz, 2006),
while in the UK, it seems that some mothers prefer not to think about
the donor, irrespective of whether he is anonymous or identifiable
(Zadeh et al., 2016a). In general, it appears that single mothers may be
more likely than their partnered counterparts to have shared, or plan to
share, information about donor conception with their child (Scheib
et al., 2003; Freeman et al., 2016). Some studies have shown that single
mothers incorporate the donor into their child’s ‘birth narrative’ (Hertz,
2006), while others have highlighted a tendency amongst mothers to
postpone sharing this information (Landau and Weissenberg, 2010),
and some uncertainty about doing so at all (Freeman et al., 2016).
Most of what is known about children’s perspectives in solo mother
families has been derived from mothers’ reports. In general, it seems that
in the preschool years, and as they start school, children may ask about
the whereabouts of their father (Hertz, 2006; Landau and Weissenberg,
2010; Weissenberg and Landau, 2012; Zadeh et al., 2016b), but their
thoughts and feelings about donor conception are less well understood.
Research that has elicited the reports of donor-conceived children in
other family types suggests that children may think about their origins in
multiple ways. Regarding donor information, Vanfraussen et al. (2001)
found that of 41 children aged 7–11 years old with same-sex parents,
54% did not want more information, 19% wanted non-identifying information, and 27% wanted identifying information about the donor.
Children with opposite-sex parents have also been shown to vary in their
feelings, with Blake et al. (2014) finding that at age 10, children may feel
positive, neutral, mixed or negative about being donor-conceived.
In studies of adolescents, thoughts and feelings about the donor have
been found to vary according to family type. Those in solo mother families appear less likely than their two-parent counterparts to report feeling confused when first told, and more likely to refer to the donor as
their ‘father’ or ‘biological father’, to feel positively about their donor
conception, and to be curious about the donor, specifically, his reasons
for donation, and his likeness to them (Scheib et al., 2005; Jadva et al.,
2009; Beeson et al., 2011; Nelson et al., 2013). Differences between
adolescents’ thoughts and feelings about the donor in solo mother and
opposite-sex two-parent families have primarily been explained in terms
of either father absence (Beeson et al., 2011), or the age at which children are told about donor conception (Jadva et al., 2009). However,
most studies of adolescents in solo mother families have relied upon
questionnaire methods, and have either recruited participants via online
forums for those interested in making connections with the donor or
children conceived using the same donor (Jadva et al., 2009, 2010;
Beeson et al., 2011; Persaud et al., 2016), or studied adolescents whose
donors are identifiable (Scheib et al., 2005).
More recently, researchers have investigated the other family factors
that may contribute to adolescents’ thoughts and feelings about the
donor, focusing on variation within, rather than between, family types.
Slutsky et al. (2016) investigated the relationship between adolescents’
security of attachment to their parent(s) and their perceptions of the
donor. According to attachment theory, relationships with caregivers
influence psychological, emotional and social adjustment throughout the
life course (Bowlby, 1988). Secure attachment patterns are based on
the perception of caregiver(s) as a ‘secure base’ from which to explore
the world and a ‘safe haven’ in times of stress; that is, the perceived availability of caregiver(s) to provide both instrumental and emotional support. Such patterns have been shown to positively impact upon children’s
outcomes at different developmental stages (Belsky and Cassidy, 1994).
Conversely, insecure attachment patterns are associated with negative
outcomes over time (Hesse and Main, 2000). In Slutsky et al.’s (2016)
study the Friends and Family Interview (FFI) (Steele and Steele, 2005), an
interview technique designed to assess children’s security of attachment
to their parents in middle childhood and adolescence, was administered
to 19 donor-conceived adolescents in solo mother and same-sex twoparent families. An association was found between attachment security
and curiosity about donor conception, with adolescents with secure
attachment patterns reporting greater acceptance of their origins.
By using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this study sought
to investigate whether attachment security was associated with
thoughts and feelings about donor conception among pre-adolescent
children in solo mother families. It explored how children in solo
mother families think and feel about their donor conception and the
donor at an age at which they appear to understand their donor conception (Blake et al., 2014) and are able to offer comprehensive information about their relationships with their caregiver(s) (Kriss et al.,
2012). It is also the first study to have investigated the narratives about
the donor told by pre-adolescent children in solo mother families.
Materials and Methods
Participants
Participants were interviewed as part of a longitudinal study of single
mother families created by donor insemination in the UK. All families were
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originally recruited through one of the UK’s largest fertility clinics that has
also provided the longest-standing programme for single women. A random sample of single mother families with a donor-conceived child aged
between 4 and 9 years was selected by the clinic, and invited to take part
in the study. A participation rate of 72% was obtained. Families were previously visited when children were on average 5.7 years of age (Golombok
et al., 2016; Zadeh et al., 2016b). At the present phase of the study, which
is ongoing, families were visited in child age order, with families with the
oldest children being revisited first. A total of 24 families were contacted,
and 23 agreed to take part, giving a participation rate of 96%.
Interviews were conducted with 19 children aged between 7 and 13
years (mean = 10.3, SD = 1.82). Four children were not interviewed
because they had not yet been told about the donor’s role in their conception (n = 3), or did not consent to participation (n = 1). All participants
had been told about their donor conception, and the majority (n = 16,
85%) were told this information before the age of 3; the remainder were
told at ages 4 (n = 1, 5%), 8 (n = 1, 5%) and 12 (n = 1, 5%). Most children
(n = 14, 74%) were conceived using an anonymous donor; the remainder
(n = 5, 26%) were conceived using an identifiable donor. Ten children
(53%) were male and 9 (47%) were female. Twelve children (63%) were
singletons, five (26%) had one sibling also conceived through donor insemination. Two children (11%) had two siblings, one conceived naturally and
one conceived through donor insemination. Four mothers (21%) were
now in relationships, three (16%) of which were cohabiting, although all
stated that they remained single parents.
Procedure
Approval for the study was obtained from the University of Cambridge
Psychology Research Ethics Committee. Written, informed consent was
obtained from all participants and their mothers. One of three trained
researchers (S.Z., C.M.J. or T.B.) interviewed children on their own at home.
Each interview lasted ~1 h in duration. Interviews were transcribed and anonymised, and imported into the qualitative software program Atlas.ti.
Measures
Donor Conception Interview
Children were administered a modified version of a semi-structured interview (Blake et al., 2014) designed to assess children’s thoughts and feelings
about being donor-conceived. Children were asked about their understanding of, and initial feelings about, donor conception, to describe what
they imagined their donor to be like, their thoughts and feelings about him,
if they discussed him with other people, if they perceived him as a family
member, and if they had any questions they would like to ask him.
Interviews were analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Four variables were created from the interview schedule: (i) ‘description
of donor’, (ii) ‘feelings about donor’, (iii) ‘thoughts about donor’ and
(iv) ‘questions for donor’, and rated according to a standardized coding
scheme. Description of donor and feelings about donor were each rated on
a three-point scale ranging from ‘1’ negative through ‘2’ neutral to ‘3’ positive. Thoughts about donor was rated on a three-point scale from ‘1’ no
through ‘2’ sometimes to ‘3’ yes. Questions for donor was rated on a fourpoint scale ranging from ‘1’ no questions through ‘2’ questions about the
conception process and ‘3’ questions about the donor to ‘4’ questions
about a relationship with the donor. Rating reliability for the ‘description of
the donor’ and ‘feelings about the donor’ scales was ensured by the qualitative content analyses described below.
Quantitative analyses. Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated to
examine relationships between the four variables. A significant positive
Zadeh et al.
association was found between description of donor and feelings about
donor (r = 0.72, P < 0.001) and between thoughts about donor and questions for donor (r = 0.53, P = 0.02). Based on these findings, two scales
were created. The first, perception of the donor, comprised description of
donor and feelings about donor. The second, interest in the donor, comprised thoughts about donor and questions for donor. Higher scores on
these scales indicated more positive perceptions of, and greater interest
in, the donor, respectively.
Qualitative analyses. Qualitative content analyses (Mayring, 2000) conducted independently by two raters (C.M.J. and S.Z.) ascertained children’s level of understanding about their donor conception and their
feelings when first told. To provide greater insight into children’s narratives
about the donor, each transcript was analysed using thematic analysis
(Braun and Clarke, 2006). A total of 18 codes across transcripts were generated by the first rater (C.M.J.). All codes and corresponding text segments were abstracted from the full text and re-read, and, where
appropriate, codes were collapsed. Two main themes and four subthemes
relating to children’s perceptions of the donor were identified and crosschecked, first against the coded abstracts, and second, against the entire
dataset. Following a second reading of all transcripts (S.Z.) and a systematic data audit (Flick, 2014), themes were refined, and a thematic map produced. Raters independently reviewed each transcript against the thematic
map, identifying each child’s donor narrative as corresponding to one of
four subthemes. Transcripts that were not uniformly categorized (n = 5)
were discussed until total agreement was reached.
Friends and Family Interview
Children were administered a modified version of the FFI (Steele and
Steele, 2005), a semi-structured interview that asks about family members,
friends, teachers and school experiences, and is designed to assess security
of attachment in middle childhood and adolescence. The FFI has been
shown to have good interrater reliability and construct validity (Kriss et al.,
2012) and has been used successfully with both adopted and donorconceived samples (Stievenart et al., 2012; Slutsky et al., 2016).
Interviews were coded using the FFI Rating and Classification System
(Kriss et al., 2012) on several dimensions including truth, reflective functioning
skills, and perception of mother as available to provide both practical and
emotional support. Each of these constructs was rated on a four-point scale
ranging from 1 (no evidence) to 4 (significant evidence). Individual scales
were used to produce ratings on a four-point scale for each of the four global
attachment classifications: (1) secure-autonomous, (2) insecure–dismissing,
(3) insecure–preoccupied and (4) insecure–disorganized. Responses were
coded with an emphasis on how the mother–child relationship was discussed. Interview transcripts were coded twice, first by one of the researchers (C.M.J.) and second, by an independent rater unaware of children’s
responses to the Donor Conception Interview. Interrater reliability for each
attachment classification was calculated using Pearson correlations as follows:
secure-autonomous (0.78), insecure–dismissing (0.71), insecure–preoccupied
(0.84), insecure–disorganized (0.82), reflecting high levels of interrater agreement for the four attachment classifications. The first coder’s ratings were
used in all analyses.
Quantitative analyses. Pearson correlations between children’s attachment
ratings as determined by the FFI and children’s scores on the perception of
the donor and interest in the donor scales were conducted to examine the
relationship between attachment and children’s perceptions of and interest in the donor.
871
Children’s thoughts and feelings about their donor
Negative feelings included:
Results
I really don’t think he’d be the best Dad because if he doesn’t even want
to see his own child then I don’t think he’d be the best. (9-year-old girl)
Children’s understanding of donor
conception
I just feel like I want to be with him, want him to live with us. (8-year-old boy)
Overall, 14 children (74%) were able to explain at least some aspect of
donor conception; the remainder (n = 5, 26%) were unable or unwilling
to do so. Explanations ranged from describing the fertility clinic or hospital, to mentioning the donor, to details about the conception process:
There’s a special part in the hospital where you can go if you don’t have a
boyfriend … so you can just go ask … if people volunteer to help make a
baby. (11-year-old boy)
I was made by a donor, that’s about all I know. (9-year-old girl)
Positive descriptions included:
He’s probably quite a kind person … the sort of person who wants to
help people. (11-year-old girl)
I think he would be kind, he would be caring, he would be nice, maybe loving. (8-year-old boy)
Positive feelings included:
I kind of admire him I suppose. (11-year-old girl)
To make a baby you need sperm from a man and an egg from a woman
and some very kind men helped my Mum make me and they donated their
sperms. (9-year-old girl)
I feel that he helped me a lot to be alive. (9-year-old girl)
Children’s questions for the donor
Children’s memory of, and responses to,
disclosure
Most children (n = 15, 79%) had at least one question for the donor
(Table II).
Twelve children (63%) reported remembering being told about their
donor conception, and 9 (48%) recalled initial responses to this information: feeling different (n = 1, 5%), confused (n = 3, 16%), surprised
(n = 1, 5%), neutral (n = 2, 11%) or positive (n = 2, 11%):
Children’s narratives about the donor
I didn’t really know what my Mum was talking about. I thought she was
talking gibberish. (10-year-old boy)
I just remember accepting it and moving on. (12-year-old girl)
Of the seven children (37%) who could not remember being told,
three (16%) reported that they had always known.
Children’s thoughts, feelings and descriptions
of the donor
Approximately half of the children (n = 10, 52%) reported that they
did not think about the donor. Six children (32%) said they thought
about him only occasionally, and three (16%) reported that they did
think about him:
Yeah, before I heard the description of him, I always imagined him to have
black hair, a moustache, blue eyes, that’s how I always imagined him.
(8-year-old boy)
Children’s descriptions and feelings about the donor varied (Table I).
Negative descriptions included:
He’s just a weird man who helped to make babies, that’s it. (8-year-old girl)
I don’t really know [what sort of person he is]. I don’t really care. Probably
not a trustworthy one … because of his job. (12-year-old girl)
Table I Description of and feelings about the donor.
Data are n (%).
Negative
Neutral
Positive
........................................................................................
Description of the donor
3 (16)
5 (26)
11 (58)
Feelings about the donor
2 (10)
11 (58)
6 (32)
More than half (n = 11, 58%) of children’s donor narratives drew upon
notions of biological and social parenthood. Some children (n = 4,
21%) distinguished between the donor’s role as a biological contributor and the role of a social parent, while others appeared to either
confuse (n = 4, 21%) or entirely conflate (n = 3, 16%) these roles.
Conversely, several children (n = 8, 42%) described the donor in minimal terms, as neither a biological contributor nor social parent.
Narratives thus corresponded to one of four subthemes on a continuum: (i) donor as stranger, (ii) donor as biological father, (iii)
ambivalence towards donor and (iv) donor as social parent.
Donor as stranger
These narratives were generally brief. They did not include a description of the donor as either a biological or social parent, and did not
identify him as family:
He’s got no role in my life, so, sort of just, he’s not part of my family or anything … He just feels like another person in the world. (11-year-old girl)
Some narratives were positive, describing the donor as ‘kind’ and ‘helpful,’
while others were either neutral or negative. For some children, answering
questions about what the donor might be like seemed challenging:
I’ve no idea who they are … I actually wonder who he is. (13-year-old boy)
I don’t know what he’s like because I’ve never met him. (8-year-old girl)
Other children stated that they did not have a father:
It’s just a guy’s characteristics and parts apparently … Whenever [other
people] ask I just say ‘don’t have a Dad’. (12-year-old boy)
Donor as biological father
Narratives about the donor as a biological father often emphasized his
physical characteristics:
He has dark features, dark eyebrows, eyes … Mum says you have his eyes
or hair. And we wouldn’t have these kind of features if our Dad was
blonde. (12-year-old boy)
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Zadeh et al.
Table II Questions children would like to ask the donor.
Question topic
Number of children who
would like to ask about this
Examples
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
No questionsa
4
Age
4
‘I would ask when he was born, how old he is.’
Reasons for donation
4
‘Why did he feel like that was a good thing to do?’
Donor–child relationshipb
3
‘Would you ever like to be my actual dad?’
Occupation
3
‘Just ask about his job and that’s it.’
Personality/interestsc
3
‘I’d like to know about his personality and stuff like that, what he likes to do.’
Children conceived using same donor
2
‘Where do my other brothers and sisters live?’
Conception processd
2
‘What type of medicine did you have to give mummy?’
Donor’s family
2
‘Is he married to someone else and does he have children that he knows?’
Appearance
1
‘What does he look like?’
Name
1
‘What his name is.’
Example of ‘no questions’.
Example of ‘questions about a relationship with the donor’.
c
Example of ‘questions about the donor’.
d
Example of ‘questions about the conception process’.
a
b
Apparently it was a man that was tall, that’s probably why we’re tall.
(12-year-old girl)
One child also described the donor’s personality on the basis of her own:
I think he’s quite a lively and musical person who enjoys going outside and
running around and being all crazy and whatever because that’s a bit like
me. (12-year-old girl)
These narratives generally described the donor as ‘technically my Dad
in a way’, ‘sort of’ or ‘kind of like family’. One child mentioned using
information provided by the fertility clinic when discussing the donor:
If people ask something about my Dad … They ask ‘Do you know him?’
and I probably say ‘no’ or something like, ‘but I have a sheet that says
about him.’ (10-year-old boy)
Ambivalence towards donor
Ambivalent narratives often included multiple interpretations of the
donor, and mixed feelings about him and his status as a father:
I felt fine [when first told] because I was used to not having a Dad and I
didn’t really care … I wish I could just meet him … because he’s my Dad
after all. (13-year-old girl)
It’s normal for me because I’m just used to not having a Dad … I don’t
really want to meet him because if I do I’ll probably just miss him, because
I guess he is kind of my Dad. (11-year-old boy)
Children were also ambivalent as to whether or not the donor was
family:
I’d describe him as a half Dad like he’s half not my Dad but he half is my
Dad. (11-year-old boy)
My Dad … He’s not really family, maybe genetically or biologically whatever you say, not really my family. (10-year-old boy)
In one narrative, mixed feelings about the donor were discussed in
relation to making contact with him in the future:
Mum said that one day when I’m older I could find my biological Dad … I
feel quite happy because I kind of like not having a Dad. (10-year-old girl)
In another, ambivalence was highlighted in relation to donor siblings:
I think there are eight others so far that are the same as me, same Dad …
He was quite kind because … he wanted to make life even though he
didn’t want to see us for some reason. I can’t think of him really … I don’t
know if I would like him or hate him if I did see him … he would have to
be shared out between about 13 other kids, so. (10-year-old boy)
Donor as social parent
Narratives in this category were likely to mention the possibility of a
social relationship with the donor, or the current lack thereof, with
multiple feelings expressed:
I don’t really think he’d be the best Dad because he doesn’t want to be …
I’d still call him Dad. (9-year-old girl)
I know what I feel like but I also don’t know because I really want to meet
him someday but I also don’t … because I’m not sure what he’ll be like
and yeah, I’m not sure if he will want to see me. (9-year-old girl)
These narratives were also likely to describe the donor as family. Two
referred to donor siblings:
Now you have to be 18 to see him, but when I’m 18 I want to see him and
I want to meet some of my half-brothers and sisters. (9-year-old girl)
[I’d ask him] ‘Where do my other brothers and sisters live? And are you
going to live here?’ (8-year-old boy)
Relationship between attachment and
children’s thoughts and feelings about
the donor
Pearson correlation coefficients were calculated between children’s
attachment ratings on each of the four dimensions of the FFI coding
scheme and children’s scores on the perception of the donor and
interest in the donor scales to examine the relationship between
attachment security and children’s perceptions of, and interest in, the
donor (Table III). A significant positive association was found between
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Children’s thoughts and feelings about their donor
Table III Pearson correlations between the Friends and Family Interview attachment scales and the ‘Interest in the
donor’ and ‘Perception of the donor’ scales from the Donor Conception Interview.
Secure-autonomous
Insecure-dismissing
Insecure-preoccupied
Interest in the donor
0.097
−0.374
0.369
Perception of the donor
0.549*
−0.085
−0.110
Insecure-disorganized
.............................................................................................................................................................................................
0.073
−0.632**
* Correlation is significant at the P < 0.05 level (2-tailed).
**
Correlation is significant at the P < 0.01 level (2-tailed).
the secure-autonomous scale of the FFI and the perception of the
donor scale (r = 0.549, P = 0.015), showing that children with higher
levels of secure-autonomous attachment had more positive perceptions of the donor. In addition, a significant negative association was
found between the insecure–disorganized scale of the FFI and the perception of the donor scale (r = −0.632, P = 0.004), reflecting more
negative perceptions among children with higher levels of insecure–
disorganized attachment.
Discussion
Findings suggest that in middle childhood, children in solo mother families are diverse in their thoughts, feelings and narratives about the
donor; while some children feel positively, others are neutral or negative in their evaluations. Additionally, although some children do not
appear to have thoughts about or questions for the donor, others
seem curious about him. Children’s questions for the donor ranged
from those focussed on the possibility of a relationship, to wanting
identifying, or non-identifying, information. These findings—both
about the diversity of children’s perceptions of the donor, and their
differing levels of curiosity about him—are in keeping with what is
known about the perspectives of donor-conceived children at a similar
developmental stage in both same-sex and opposite-sex two-parent
families (Vanfraussen et al., 2001, 2003; Blake et al., 2014).
This study also investigated the relationship between children’s ideas
about the donor and their patterns of attachment to their mothers. In
middle childhood, children with secure-autonomous attachments continue to perceive their caregivers as both reliable and responsive to
their needs, while those with insecure–disorganized attachments
exhibit behaviours that indicate that a consistent strategy towards their
caregivers is lacking (Bosmans and Kerns, 2015). Children with higher
levels of secure-autonomous attachment were found to be more likely
to have positive perceptions of the donor, and those with higher levels
of insecure–disorganized attachment were more likely to perceive him
negatively. It should be noted, however, that no correction for multiple
comparisons was carried out. Like Slutsky et al.’s (2016) study, the present investigation suggests that attachment patterns may be of predictive value in understanding how young donor-conceived people will
think and feel about the donor. That these findings are shared across
two separate studies of two separate samples, one in the USA and the
other in the UK, and one of adolescents and the other of younger children, incites further, in-depth investigation of larger samples to increase
understanding of the association between the nature of mother–child
relationships and thoughts and feelings about the donor over time.
Children’s interviews were also analysed qualitatively, illustrating that
for some children, the donor remains a stranger about whom little is
known or thought, while for others, he is a biological relative, who may
be responsible for some of their traits. Some children seem to find positioning the donor difficult, and thus describe him in ambivalent terms,
as at once a biological and social parent. For a minority, the donor is
primarily understood in a social role, and these children are likely to
report wanting to meet him, and/or other children conceived using his
gametes. Notions of biological and social parenthood are also found in
the donor narratives of children in same-sex two-parent families (Van
Parys et al., 2015). Although distinguishing between these two concepts
seems to be more challenging for some children in solo mother families
than it is for others, it is perhaps unsurprising that at the age at which
children become embedded in peer networks, they draw upon dominant narratives of family life in order to make sense of their conception.
Understanding the factors that contribute to particular narratives
about the donor among the present sample is challenging. While previous research has established that age at disclosure is important for
perceptions of the donor and donor conception (Jadva et al., 2009,
2010; Hertz et al., 2013), the majority of children interviewed were
told about their donor conception at an early age. However, it is noteworthy that more of the younger children referred to the donor as a
social parent than did those who were older, perhaps because younger children may be more likely to understand family relationships on
the basis of frequency of contact (Perlesz et al., 2006) than are older
children. Those who are younger are also be more likely to have been
conceived with identifiable donors, owing to the UK Human
Fertilisation and Embryology Act (2008). Whether or not younger children are more likely to conceptualize the donor as a social parent, and
if and how this relates to donor identifiability is not yet known. This
question should be prioritized as more of the children in the study
reach the required age for follow-up (≥7 years).
It seems clear that for some children, ideas about the donor are
shaped by information shared by their mothers. Findings may thus be
said to reflect the power asymmetry of parent–child relationships at
this developmental stage (Van Parys et al., 2015), as children are not
yet of an age at which they can independently attempt to access information about the donor or other children conceived using his gametes.
Other research would seem to suggest that curiosity about these connections among those in solo mother families may continue into adolescence (Scheib et al., 2005; Jadva et al., 2009; Beeson et al., 2011),
and it is worth noting that some of the children who believed they
could identify the donor at age 18 were conceived using anonymous
donors. Although very few children expressed a desire to meet the
donor, findings thus highlight a need for both mothers and children to
receive accurate information regarding the possibility of future contact
(Zadeh, 2016). Further research would benefit from studying children’s and mothers’ narratives simultaneously.
874
Although middle childhood remains an understudied developmental
stage in research on attachment (Bosmans and Kerns, 2015), findings
suggest that donor-conceived children’s thoughts and feelings about the
donor may be best investigated through a family systems approach
(Kerr and Bowen, 1988) that accounts for the role of relationships and
processes within families. Given the small sample size, and the relatively
wide age range within it, conclusions must be drawn cautiously, yet
findings are enhanced by the quantitative and qualitative analyses conducted. The study design made it possible both to gain in-depth information from children about their thoughts and feelings about the
donor, and to assess their attachment relationships to their mothers. In
general, the study highlights the importance of situating children’s ideas
about the donor within the family context. Future research with larger
samples should examine this context in greater depth by investigating
the role that siblings, other family members and significant others may
play in children’s donor, and wider family, narratives. It is recommended that those working with donor conception families consider
advice relating to conversations about the donor within the context of
existing parent–child relationships and family life more generally.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the children who participated in the study,
and thank Anja McConnachie, the Brocher Foundation, Geneva
(www.brocher.ch), and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
Authors’ roles
All authors were involved in study design, data acquisition, analysis and
interpretation. This article was drafted by S.Z. and has been approved
by all authors.
Funding
Wellcome Trust [097857/Z/11/Z].
Conflict of interest
None declared.
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